Roseburg review. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 1885-1920, 1887-03-18
R0SEBURG REVIEW
M4RR1AcE AND DIroRcE EAws.

experience of other states. Gov An
drew of Massachusetts, favored the con /,
fermcnt of divorce jurisdiction upon
the probate court, measure which
many able iurists support, believing that
a permanent tribunal like the probate f.;
court would investigate all suits for I
divorce with more thoroughness than
it is possible for a supreme court judge,
going around a circuit, to do. This
change would be salutary, in our judg-
ment. Beyond this, more can be done
by strict marriage laws, which seek to
prevent illegitimate and improper un
ions, or at least make them more de-
iberate and therefore more difficult
So long as bad marriages are made easy
the annual crop of divorces will not di-
minish Law might make it more dif-
ficult to secure a divorce, but law could |
not cure THE evil state Of moral and |
physical repulsion that sends people to
the courts for relief Practically there
is no help for divorce by deliberate de-
sertion, which is sure to follow refusal
of legal separation when the applicants
are in earnest in their appeal.
There are two irreconcilable theories
of di, oree. The clergy have generally
opposed the idea Of marriage as a mere
legal contract that may be set aside by
the state, and agreed that divorce
should only be granted for adultery;
but the COMMON sense Of mankind con-
qrers the narrowncss of the church III
the courts and in the legislature, and
this kind Of common sense is after all
nothing but moral sense, purified from
all superstition and bigotry by expert.
ence with the everyday working world
that appeals to courts for justice and
relief. Few states have consented to
restrict legal divorce to adultery. New
York is one of the oldest Of our states,
has a very intelligent rura! population
and a most enlightened civilization; it's
divorce laws are as strict as church can
require, and yet its marriage laws are
very loose and there are as many di-
vorced couples, as many offenses against
marital fidelity and public chastity gen.
orally among the rural population of
the Empire state as there are in states
where liberal laws OH the subject of
divorce are the rule. South Carolina
never allowed divorce even foradultery,
and yet there are as many persons of
mixed black and white blood in South
Carolina in proportion to our popula-
ton as in any Of the other of the old
slave states, and there have been as
many ofenses against marital fidelity
Practically the limitation of divorce to
adultery does not seem to abate the
evils it is counted upon to cure, for So
ciety gains nothing by attempting to
keep two persons together, who never
ought to have been together, and have
therefore become source of chronic
social discord and moral corrosion to
each other. Limitation of divorce tc
adultery only offers a premium for its
commission by those desperately bent
on separation. Humanity is against tbs
voice of ecclesiastical law on this point
aud says that desertion, chronic intem,
porance, intolerable severity defined
with strlctness, not accepted as mere
prctcXt, or life of infamous crime are
lair grounds for divorce A grossly
dissolute man, brutal husband, may
make home Il hell 20 an upright woman,
demoralize and degrade both her and
her children by his daily outrage Of all
the dcccncies of life, anil this innocent
woman must stay lashed for Iffe to this
moral corpse unless she is fortunate
enough to bc able to prove an act Of
adultery. y woman may lie deserted
by a vagraut husband without cause,
and vet be obliged to struggle on alone
with the load Of children her loafer
husband has lett her to carry, ard
nothing can divorce her, says the
church, but death or adultery The
justice of humanity long ago refused to
accept this doctrine, that no man shall
DE released from wicked woman or a
woman from wicked man except for
adultery 1t is we'll to surround the
institution of marriage with all the
added restraints of religion, but there
is a practical side to marriage which
cannot be regulated or reformed by re-
viving the old ecclesiastical theory of
marriage and divorce.
This old theory did not extirpato but
rather promoted the growth of the so
cial evil by keeping two persons to
gether who could do no worse and
might doebetter if divorced from deat
body of marital duties and affections
Crimes against the marriage relation
seem TO be as common in Catholic coun
tries, where the church recognizes nC
divorce, as under the more liberal Pc!
icy of Protestant countries. France
Austria and Italy are more corrupt il
this respect than England or Prussia
1t is no more possible to make peopl
,;rt,,o1,s and hannv In The conirna